Del Rey
March 07, 2017
560 pages
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Reviews of Alive (The Generations Trilogy #1) and Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)
In the final installment of an exhilarating sci-fi adventure trilogy in the vein of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, Scott Sigler’s unforgettable heroine, Em Savage, must come to grips once and for all with the perilous mysteries of her own existence.I have never been one to start a book by reading the last page but never before have I been so happy that I do not do that. The ending of Alone, if read at any point except for after everything that came before it (in Alive then Alight and the rest of Alone) would be confusing and disappointing. After all of that, though? It's kind of perfect. Not something I would have ever expected, but so much better.
“We thought this place was our destiny—not our doom.”
Pawns in a millennia-old struggle, the young people known only as the Birthday Children were genetically engineered to survive on the planet Omeyocan—but they were never meant to live there. They were made to be “overwritten,” their minds wiped and replaced by the consciousness of the monsters who created them.
Em changed all of that.
She unified her people and led a revolt against their creators. Em and her friends escaped an ancient ghost ship and fled to Omeyocan. They thought they would find an uninhabited paradise. Instead, they found the ruins of a massive city long since swallowed by the jungle. And they weren’t alone. The Birthday Children fought for survival against the elements, jungle wildlife, the “Grownups” who created them . . . and, as evil corrupted their numbers, even against themselves.
With these opponents finally defeated, Em and her people realized that more threats were coming, traveling from across the universe to lay claim to their planet. The Birthday Children have prepared as best they can against this alien armada. Now, as the first ships reach orbit around Omeyocan, the final battle for the planet begins.
But you're going to want to read those other pages, too. In the first two books, we met the Birthday Children, found out who and what they are, learned why they woke up in those 'coffins' and found Omeyocan and the Springers. Just when it seemed like Em, Bishop, Spingate and the others might finally be able to survive on this planet they were created specifically for, other threats loomed on the horizon.
In Alone it's time to find out what those approaching ships might want and how Em and the others pan to deal with it. Some of the answers we seem to get early on in the book lead to some even bigger questions that had me questioning things from the first two books; things I didn't realize needed to be questioned.
With the stakes somehow even higher, readers get to see more of who the characters really are what they're capable of, both good and bad. For characters who have only been alive since the beginning of this trilogy, I thought they had been through a lot, but that was nothing compared to all that happens in Alone. The journey the author takes these characters on, from the beginning of Alive through the very end of Alone is really something.
This book, the last of the Generations Trilogy, had me questioning known facts, rethinking relationships, wondering what the characters were capable of, if actions, behaviors, or thoughts were really them, hoping they didn't did, then, maybe, accepting that they would, then hoping maybe, maybe they wouldn't and, finally, very satisfied with how it all ended. Alone feels bigger and grander than what I remember of the first two books, but more personal and human, as well; it's a great conclusion to the series.
digital review copy received from publisher, via NetGalley
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